The San Francisco Earthquake

One day, my San Francisco 5th-grade class went to visit an exhibit about the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. While there, we met some survivors, old and ancient, but still alive with vivid memories of the disaster. To us, it had always been just something you read about. But, the survivors made the horror come alive, and suddenly we were quiet with awe and fright. This book gave me the same impression. Broken into a chronological pattern, we relive the days before, the days during, and the days after the conflagration. I couldn't put this book down! The book also told us something our beloved City always tried to hush up, and that was regarding the Bubonic Plague. The rats overran the City, due to broken sewer pipes and destruction, and with them they carried the fleas of the Plague. Astonishing. It can all happen again and reminds us how lucky Baghdad-By-The-Bay really was (only a few plague cases and no tsunami even though the Bay was lowered by four inches). You gotta get a hold of this book.

Gordon Thomas and Max Witts take the reader in detail, minute by minute into a living hell. They trace the damage done by the earthquake from its starting point out in the Pacific, ripping up onto the California coast and into the city by the bay. The earthquake broke the water and gas lines and because San Francisco was, and still is, built so close, a small fire spread. The military took over and some of the soldiers shot people without trial for looting and even not moving fast enough. And yet, the military looted items that they were suppose to guard, even the relief supplies. This book makes you feel like you are right in the middle of the action. The reader will feel like fighting the fire with the firemen, helping the common citizen trying to safe his home, or serching for a lost child for a frighten mother...not knowing if the child is dead or alive. One word comes to mind after reading this book...WOW!!!